Praedicator

Verba

Friday, January 7, 2011 - Christmas Weekday

[1 John 4:19 - 5:4 and Luke 4:14-22a]

Beloved we love God because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [1 John]

Today we are presented with the "other side of the coin" in a true Christian life - love of neighbor. It should not come as any surprise to us as a teaching. We could easily recall the incident in the Gospel of Luke when a "scholar of the law" asks Jesus about the great commandments of the Mosaic Law. Jesus replies by turning the question around, and the lawyer responds correctly - love of God and love of neighbor. But, the lawyer sees right away what the implications of the second commandment are and tries to narrow the scope by asking, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus' response is the parable of the Good Samaritan.

It remains a terrible fact that horrible violence has been done to humans by humans who claim to love God! This terrible fact is one of the constant arguments of the "new atheism," represented by people like Sam Dawkins and others, who use this as a weapon to support their arguments that there is no such thing as God. (Somehow they think they can destroy God by destroying the credibility of religion.) The sad record of religious violence makes the words of the Letter of John all the more urgent in our time. We cannot claim to love God if we intentionally act destructively or violently toward another human being. This takes in the entire gamut of human harm from our homes, neighborhoods, cities, states and nation. Biblical support has been cited for violence to children as well as to other nations!

The implications of the teaching in the Letter of John are tremendous. (e.g. all the violence in modern media) Can we say we love God if we give support to violence as a form of entertainment? Can we say we love God if we support discriminatory practices in employment and immigration? Can we say we love God if we do not respect human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death?

Obviously we Christians have a LONG way to go if we want to make the truly revolutionary teaching of Jesus a reality. The task seems overwhelming, but we can start with the person we are closest to and go from there! AMEN